Translations for weather forecasts, alerts restored after pause, weather service says

The National Weather Service announced Thursday it was planning to resume translation services for its forecasts by Monday, after announcing earlier this month it was pausing the service.

The service's post Thursday on the social media site X said: "The National Weather Service’s contract to produce common language translations for @NWS products has been reinstated. Translation capabilities are expected to be operational on or before the end of the day on Monday, April 28."

Erica Cei, a spokeswoman for the weather service, said in a phone interview with Newsday Thursday: "The statement on X is all the weather service is providing now. But we will have more information available next week. The contract has been renewed." 

The contract Cei cited was with a San Francisco-based firm Lilt, which provide artificial intelligence-generated translation of weather forecasts and other weather warnings for the non-English speaking public, Newsday has reported.

A weather service spokesman, Michael Musher, told Newsday in an email earlier this month that "Due to a contract lapse, NWS paused the automated language translation services for our products until further notice."

Newsday reported in 2023 that the weather service's New York office was one of 14 in the country to use translations guided by artificial intelligence through a five-year, $5.5 million contract for translation services through Lilt.

Large Chinese-speaking communities in Queens and Manhattan were one reason the New York forecast office was chosen as the only one in the country to offer simplified Chinese translations.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) called the translation service “essential for the 67 million people in the United States who speak a language other than English” in a statement Thursday, adding: “In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, my Queens community lost lives that could have been saved if more multilingual alerts reached people in our diverse community.” Eleven people in Queens drowned in basements after flash flooding caused by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

”As hurricane season arrives on the East Coast,” Meng said in her statement, “we must do everything we can to alert residents who are in the path of dangerous storms.”

With Nicholas Spangler

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie